Figure 4. Around half of businesses and charities have taken at least one of these actions in the last 12 months — although this means that around half have done none of these things. Taken individually, only a minority of organisations are carrying out each of these actions. The most common actions are around deploying security monitoring tools and undertaking risk assessments. By contrast, threat intelligence remains a relatively niche undertaking. The new categories covered for the first time this year — mock phishing exercises, vulnerability audits and penetration testing — are also relatively uncommon, undertaken by around one to two in ten organisations.
While the survey has asked about audits in previous years, the significant change to the question wording here means this result is not comparable with previous years.
These sectoral differences are similar to previous years. Looking specifically at the new answer options this year, these are also more commonly carried out by large businesses and high-income charities — although even among these populations, it is not necessarily a clear majority undertaking each individual action:. In the qualitative research, we found that approaches to risk assessments varied considerably.
Some organisations carried them out on a project-by-project basis, some undertook them as regular scheduled activities, and some had done them reactively in response to breaches. In addition to their core purpose of identifying key risks, risk assessments were often viewed as a good way to produce evidence for management boards, which could be used to justify proposed cyber security actions or investment, or to show trends over time and whether things had improved. For example, one medium business carried out a mock phishing exercise as part of their risk assessment — they found that 15 per cent of staff responded to the mock phishing email, and presented these findings to the management board.
This led to new user training on phishing emails, as well as other technical rule changes. Furthermore, some interviewees considered risk assessments as a way of raising the profile of cyber security with staff. In their view, the risk assessment exercise demonstrated the importance the organisation was placing on cyber security internally.
One large business also highlighted the external reputational benefits of carrying out cyber security risk assessments, to support bids for new work with corporate clients, or to show regulators that cyber security was being taken seriously. Many interviewees noted that there was no standard approach for doing a cyber security risk assessment, as far as they knew.
Some carried out penetration testing or mock phishing exercises as part of the risk assessment. Others admitted that their approach might be outdated or too informal, but were uncertain about best practice and how they could improve it. The approach often depended on who was conducting the assessment. Those led by IT teams tended to be more focused on technical IT issues and improvements.
In one instance, the assessment was purely technical and did not cover areas such as user awareness and training. By contrast, assessments undertaken outside of IT teams had often been instigated in response to the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR , and were therefore more focused on things like adherence to data storage policies and GDPR checks for suppliers. In a handful of instances, organisations had arranged for external risk assessments. These tended to be far more comprehensive and wide-ranging than internal assessments.
For example, one university had contracted an external supplier to carry out a cyber security risk assessment, which came back with around recommendations to be implemented over the next three to five years. Risk assessment findings were typically reported to management boards in some form, for example with a presentation of findings.
In some cases, they fed into updates to corporate risk registers, which also fed into actions taken by the board.
In a new question this year, we asked organisations that have undertaken cyber security vulnerability audits if these were internal or external. This is strongly linked to the size of the organisation:. A total of 12 per cent of charities have carried out cyber security vulnerability audits. Due to the lower overall sample size for charities, this leaves too few charities in the sample to split out by the type of audit undertaken. In the qualitative interviews, we found that internal audits tended to be less formal and take place more frequently than external ones — sometimes taking place continuously, to:.
These internal audits were typically a way for organisations to proactively monitor risks and quickly identify weaknesses in staff behaviour. We are evolving as we go along, getting better and better.
As new technologies come along, you change. By contrast, external audits were carried out where organisations wanted independent assurance that they were following the right course of action, or independent recommendations. These external audits were much less frequent, taking place annually or as one-off exercises.
They tended to be more comprehensive, with results and follow-up actions being reported to the board. In one instance, the external audit took four months. In several cases, they involved penetration testing, which was another reason for hiring an external contractor — as organisations did not have the skills to carry out such tests internally.
Pass or fail, it will go to the board. Some of the recommendations, we may put into a change log of work. Sometimes we fail and have to change right away and rescan until we pass. As Figure 4. However, it is still a minority of the businesses in these sectors that do so, despite tending to have more sophisticated approaches to cyber security overall.
Instead, there are roughly equal proportions suggesting that a lack of time, information or knowledge to look into supply chain risks are issues for them. Not knowing which suppliers to check seems, on the other hand, to be a lesser problem for businesses. With the overall smaller sample size for charities, and the fact that under one in ten have reviewed supply chain risks, there are too few charities to analyse the barriers at this question. Supply chain risks were explored in the qualitative interviews.
We mainly discussed this topic with organisations that had attempted to review supply chain risks in some way, although we also spoke to a handful that had not made any efforts in this area.
The latter group offered various reasons for this, some of which have emerged in previous years of this study:.
Among those that had reviewed these risks, several organisations said they treated every supplier the same. On the other hand, it was also common for organisations to have stricter standards for IT suppliers, suppliers that dealt with payroll data and those that dealt with any personal data.
The latter was explicitly linked to the need to be GDPR-compliant. It may well be the organisation having their own Cyber Essentials accreditation, but if the information is not so sensitive, then that may be a nice to have as opposed to an essential … This is part of the award of the contract for them.
There were also cases where smaller suppliers or those with which organisations already had long-term relationships were more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt and not subject to checks, as the existing relationship was based on trust.
Two relatively common ways of managing supplier risks included writing cyber security requirements or service-level agreements into contracts, and requiring suppliers to adhere to an external standard, like the Cyber Essentials standard covered in Section 4.
The latter was considered a relatively straightforward way to ensure that suppliers took cyber security seriously without having to collect lots of specific information.
We spoke to one university that had around major suppliers and did not have the time to review each of their cyber security approaches individually.
In this case, the university had experienced a supplier-related cyber security incident — one of their building management contractors had their systems compromised — but were uncertain what they could feasibly do to monitor all their suppliers.
During the interview, they suggested that it might be feasible to have all suppliers adhere to Cyber Essentials, but this was not currently a requirement.
We also came across more bespoke ways of dealing with suppliers. One organisation had a three strikes policy and had dismissed a supplier on this basis.
Some checked that suppliers had cyber security and GDPR policies in place. Some asked for more technical information or specified encryption standards.
Specific policies are more prevalent among medium and large firms. The proportion of businesses with insurance has increased by 11 percentage points since last year when this version of the question was first asked.
This is mainly due to a greater proportion of micro and small firms now reporting that they have cyber insurance as part of wider policy. The proportion for charities is in line with last year.
It is worth noting the high level of uncertainty remains at this question. As might be expected, insurance cover is more prevalent in the finance and insurance sector itself. Other sectors where over half reported some form of cyber insurance were:. In the qualitative research, the organisations that had taken out some form of cyber insurance had done so for a range of reasons. One common thread among larger organisations was that a significant cyber security breach could be an existential threat — it could shut down an organisation that did not have enough money in the bank to fund a recovery, or the specialist skills to deal with incident response and potential reputational damage.
As such, the access to post-breach services was a particularly important aspect of cyber insurance policies, with interviewees mentioning things like access to a helpdesk to deal with ransomware attacks, forensic analysis experts and communications support. Various organisations said they would always expect to make a claim for any breaches that they could not resolve within their own means. One charity also said they would alert their insurer to any breaches covered under the policy, and would still enquire about any post-breach services they could access under alternative arrangements, even if they did not intend to make a claim.
One large recruitment business also mentioned that they wanted to be covered financially for any fines that might be levied for personal data breaches.
They also said that having some form of cyber insurance was increasingly a client requirement in contracts. It was typical for organisations to have to lay out their cyber security approaches and standards when applying for cyber insurance.
Generally, the organisations we interviewed already met these minimum requirements. Nevertheless, in one instance, this had led a small business to raise their standards to qualify for the insurance. This involved them establishing a secure area on their website, buying their own domain and having their own email server.
One higher education institution mentioned that their insurance provider often gave them informal threat intelligence, for example by highlighting software that might have security issues based on claims made by their other cyber insurance clients. They speculated that this type of threat intelligence could, if scaled up and made a formal part of the insurance package, become a major incentive for large organisations to purchase cyber insurance in the future.
Each year, the survey has asked whether organisations have a range of technical rules and controls in place to help minimise the risk of cyber security breaches. The full list is shown in Figure 4. Many of these are basic good practice controls taken from government guidance such as the 10 Steps to Cyber Security or the requirements of Cyber Essentials.
Towards the end of this chapter, we map survey responses to these schemes to estimate how many organisations are operating in line with the guidance. By contrast, rules around personal data storage and transfer, and attempts to monitor user activity, are far less common. Businesses remain more likely than charities to have many of the full list of technical controls in place. Businesses in three sectors stand out as being among the least likely to have many of these rules or controls in place:.
The first two of these are also less likely to have senior management teams who consider cyber security as a priority as discussed in Chapter 3. Where it is possible to track changes over time in previous years i.
Each of the following are less prevalent than in the survey:. These changes are in contrast to the relative stability of these scores for businesses in previous years of the survey, and the steady improvements seen among charities in many areas. The qualitative research suggests that they are linked to the upheaval caused by the COVID pandemic. As more organisations have pivoted to allow home working, the feedback from the qualitative strand suggests that this has made it harder for organisations to centrally implement and manage technical controls covering all their users.
Where the proportions have fallen for each of these technical controls, these falls have most typically been among micro businesses and low-income charities. However, when it comes to user monitoring and the rules around personal data, the pattern of the data suggests that these particular rules and controls have become less common across the board. This survey does not explore cyber security skills and training in detail, given that there is another annual DCMS study dealing with this topic — the UK cyber security labour market series — the latest of which is the Cyber Security Labour Market Report.
Nevertheless, this year, we have recorded the proportion of organisations that have undertaken training or awareness raising activities around cyber security in the past year, as this is an important aspect of the 10 Steps to Cyber Security guidance. Our results Figure 4. Both the labour market study and this Cyber Security Breaches Survey find this sort of training to be more commonplace in larger organisations.
Finance and insurance businesses, and information and communications businesses are most likely to offer such training to staff. These are sectors where it is perhaps less commonplace for staff in manual occupations to use company devices e. For the first time this year, we recorded the job titles of the survey respondents, who were identified as being most responsible for cyber security within their organisations.
This provides an insight as to the likely seniority and influence of these individuals. In these organisations, we may have been directed to another senior individual with more day-to-day responsibility for cyber security, such as a senior IT colleague. In other words, it is micro businesses and low-income charities that are least likely to be getting any external support with their cyber security.
The survey has for several years asked whether organisations have cyber security policies in place. From to , this increased from 27 per cent to 38 per cent across businesses, with a similar increase for charities. However, this year, the result has reverted closer to the levels seen in , for both businesses and charities, with the shifts primarily being among micro and small businesses, and low-income charities.
The results are in Figure 4. However, the results could also suggest a weakening of overall governance approaches. This interpretation matches our qualitative evidence, which suggests that some organisations have overlooked proactive cyber security planning when focusing, in the short term, on other aspects of business continuity and flexibility during the COVID pandemic. Our qualitative findings at the end of this chapter explore this in more depth.
This is particularly important in the context of COVID and the need for businesses to react quickly to changes in work patterns. Around three in ten businesses and charities have such plans, as Figure 4. Among medium and large businesses, around three in ten do not have these kinds of plans in place. The finance and insurance sector far outpaces other sectors in terms of this documentation. For businesses, these findings are down from the previous pre-pandemic year, where 52 per cent had reviewed policies or documentation.
This lends evidence to the idea that documentation has not been as much of a priority under the COVID pandemic. Where they have policies, organisations tend to cover various aspects of cyber security within them.
The most common themes to be captured are data storage, appropriate use of IT and remote working Figure 4. This year, for the first time, we asked about network-connected i. The proportions discussing the use of personal devices in policies has also not significantly changed since last year. Cloud computing continues to be increasingly covered in cyber security policies — this was at 52 per cent in , up to 60 per cent in , and is up to 64 per cent this year.
This section looks at both government and external cyber accreditations and initiatives. It looks at which organisations adhere to specific accreditations. It then combines some of the individual results covered earlier in this chapter, to provide estimates showing how many businesses and charities are fulfilling the range of requirements laid out in two government initiatives: Cyber Essentials and the 10 Steps to Cyber Security.
The government-endorsed Cyber Essentials scheme enables organisations to be independently certified for having met a good-practice standard in cyber security.
Specifically, it requires them to enact basic technical controls across five areas:. Nevertheless, a higher proportion of organisations do have technical controls in these five areas. Our survey maps the five areas to individual questions, covered earlier in this chapter Figure 4. In total, 29 per cent of businesses and 20 per cent of charities report having technical controls in all five areas [footnote 6].
These figures are not comparable to previous years, given the significant wording changes at the patch management question. However, as discussed in Section 4. In a separate question, we also asked organisations for the first time this year if they recognise adhering to either the Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus standards.
ATDs and analogous programs in the criminal justice system have the support of a significant cross-section of immigration , criminal justice , and civil rights organizations who believe they are cheap, effective, and humane. Electronic monitoring devices, or ankle monitors, are increasingly being used as ATDs since Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE officials have found them to be both economical and effective.
Motivated by cost savings, their use is appropriate for immigrants who are neither a flight or safety risk, freeing up detention space for others, including those subject to mandatory detention. Less restrictive and more humane than immigration detention, ankle monitors ensure that individuals waiting for immigration court proceedings are subject to supervision by immigration authorities. Electronic monitoring is a common ATD.
The use of electronic monitoring, specifically ankle monitors, has become increasingly prevalent. ATDs are more cost-effective than detention. It also gives you access to an employee satisfaction report the Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS , which is great for identifying employee engagement and opportunities for improvement. If you want to access the full scope of BambooHR's performance management capabilities, you will want to add on the Performance Management plan.
This lets you create, monitor and collaborate on each employee's individual goals. Your staff can use peer feedback tools to identify strengths and weaknesses and to conduct short, objective self-evaluations to reflect on their performance.
BambooHR also offers employee and company performance reports, so you can get a holistic view of performance and engagement at every level. If you need payroll and time-tracking capabilities, you can add on the TRAXPayroll plan which includes full-service tax filing, comprehensive reporting, and data security assistance and the Time Tracking plan which offers functions for daily time entries, timesheets, overtime calculations and automatic reminders.
SentryPC offers several affordable plans for its cloud-hosted monitoring software to fit even the tightest software budgets. For inexpensive plans, they don't skimp on features; they include everything you need to monitor your team successfully. You can view a free online demo of the software before purchasing. This demo lets you browse sample data and reports to get a feel for the software. SentryPC is straightforward monitoring software.
After you install the software on the devices you want to monitor, you can view the tracking data from any device with web access. You can track employees' activity, such as when they log in and out each day, what they download on their devices, when they change or reset passwords, when they enable or disable two-factor authentication, and when they install and uninstall applications.
For each of these events, the software logs the activity details, the associated IP address, and the timestamp. With SentryPC, you can set maximum employee hours and track employee behavior like the websites and applications they use, the programs they access, games they play, and their keystrokes.
You can take screenshots of user activity as well. Windows devices can record even more actions, like file activity, chats, portable drive usage and print jobs. This monitoring software allows extensive content filters. You can set restrictions on certain apps, websites, games, chats and keywords for each employee. You can block or allow these activities as needed, and you'll receive an alert when an employee tries to access a blocked activity.
If you need assistance with SentryPC, you can contact customer support by online inquiry. Hubstaff is our choice as the best monitoring software for employee productivity management. It can be hard to know how productive every single employee is, especially remote workers. To alleviate this problem, Hubstaff has noninvasive features that allow you to accurately track employee time and user activity, as well as to improve your team's overall productivity.
Hubstaff is flexible software — it can support various industries, devices, and worker types e. Hubstaff has a free plan and three affordable paid plans, making it a viable option for businesses of all sizes. All paid plans have a two-user minimum, and you can test out the software risk-free with a day free trial and a day money-back guarantee.
You can cancel, upgrade or downgrade your software plan at any time. Hubstaff focuses on tracking employee time and improving productivity while maintaining employee privacy. It uses mouse and keyboard activity levels to gauge how active your employees are; instead of tracking the exact information they type keylogging , Hubstaff assigns a "true" or "false" value to the activity to indicate productivity.
It can take screenshots at regular intervals, but employees can delete screenshots that contain sensitive information e. Controlio , by EfficientLab, offers cloud-based and on-premises employee monitoring software that tracks and records employees' PC activity.
Smaller businesses are typically better suited for the cloud option, whereas larger organizations can choose between on-premises and AWS cloud options.
If you want to test out the Controlio software risk-free, the company offers a day free trial for up to three users. Controlio is easy to implement and access. All it requires is a one-time software installation on the PC you want to track, and then you can view that PC's activity from any device.
Since the data is stored in the cloud, you can view activity from the web-based dashboard, wherever you are. This is ideal for managers who need to check in on employee behavior away from the office. Controlio lets you create individual monitoring profiles, so you can see an employee's entire activity in one organized location. You can use Controlio in stealth and tray icon modes, giving you further control over how you monitor employees.
One of Controlio's best features is its ability to track screen activity. Admins and managers can gain firsthand insight into employee behavior with screenshots and video screen recording.
Controlio lets you watch employee screen activity in real time. If you want to review past activity, you can watch previously recorded video footage of an employee's computer behavior as well. Screenshots and video recordings of computer activity not only give you an idea of how your employees are spending their time, but can also help protect your business from liability for a problematic incident.
The software also offers keylogging, in case you need further visibility into employee activity. Controlio has all the standard features you need to safely monitor your staff. You can track employee attendance, monitor web and application usage, store up to six months of data unlimited storage for the on-premises and AWS cloud plans , record file usage, and view productivity scores.
It also allows you to set web filters so employees don't access unproductive or risky websites, and you can set behavior rules and alerts for when an employee attempts an unacceptable behavior. Before you sign up for Controlio's free trial, you can view an online demo of the software. This will give you more insight into how the product works. If you have questions about the software, you can access technical support by phone, email or live chat.
Veriato is comprehensive employee monitoring and insider threat detection software for businesses with Mac, PC and Android devices. The advanced capabilities of the software are especially useful for large enterprises that want complete insight into employee behavior.
For example, it helps you track workplace productivity, detect insider threats, conduct employee and forensic investigations, maintain legal compliance, and prevent data loss. Veriato has three employee monitoring plans — Cerebral, Vision and Investigator.
The plans vary in hosting method cloud or on-premises , the target size of business small, midsize or large , and features employee monitoring and insider threat detection. The Cerebral plan offers the most features and greatest flexibility. Pricing varies as well, so you will need to contact a Veriato representative for a custom quote.
Veriato caters to larger organizations by offering discounts as endpoints scale up. You can try out the software with a free trial. Veriato is somewhat complex to learn, since it has a lot of monitoring features and capabilities. You can track user activity and status for both in-office and remote workers, including document and network activities.
You can monitor employee behavior like the applications they use, the websites and browsers they search, and the emails they send. If you're looking to improve employee productivity, you can use features like productivity scoring, reporting and alerts.
Veriato also offers employee disengagement analysis, which can help you determine how engaged your staff is. If there is harmful or unproductive content that you don't want employees to access, you can block specific URLs and filter which websites are accessible.
Some features that can be especially beneficial if an inside threat occurs are the ability to record screenshots and log employee keystrokes; however, you should use these surveillance features carefully. Additional insider threat detection features include risk scoring, artificial intelligence, user and entity behavior analytics, and printing and USB device usage detection.
Veriato offers a variety of helpful security alerts for anomalies, events, policy violations, specific keywords and compliance. Work Examiner , by EfficientLab, is on-premises employee monitoring software for Windows devices.
Instead of selling the software as a monthly subscription, Work Examiner charges a one-time licensing fee plus support and update fees for a perpetual license. It has two software plans — Standard and Professional. Work Examiner offers a day free trial for up to five clients, which is a much longer trial period than most competitors offer. This gives you plenty of time to evaluate whether the software will meet your monitoring needs. This plan is best suited for small businesses. It includes essential features like website and application reporting, screenshot recording, and keystroke logging.
It can monitor your employees' searches, file usage, emails, chats and IMs, downloads and uploads, and print jobs. You can also use it to block the use of USB devices, filter websites and applications, and schedule reports. This plan is best suited for midsize and large businesses. It offers unlimited remote console access and real-time monitoring.
You can record employee keystrokes and screenshots to get a firsthand look at your employees' activity. You can track websites they visit, applications they use, their searches, files they use, instant messages and web chats, printing activity, emails, and downloads and uploads. You can also secure your network by blocking USB activity and filtering potentially harmful apps or websites.
This plan includes scheduled reports, active directory integration and multiple login capabilities. What it does: Trustwave Holdings provides on-demand data security.
Offerings include tools to prevent data loss and detect system intrusion, assess security, and scan for vulnerabilities. In addition, it provides protection, code review, penetration testing and other security measures for applications.
What it does: Reval creates treasury and risk management software that helps corporate clients and banks better manage cash, liquidity, financial risk and hedge accounting. Cybersecurity services include fraud prevention via a variety of methods, security controls like data encryption and two-factor authentication, and fraud detection tools that scout for data breaches in real time.
Its team of experts help clients identify risk sources and quantify potential impacts, develop security strategies and policies and implement controls for identification, prevention and recovery. Additionally, its solutions are deployable on-premises and in the cloud. What it does: Varonis analyzes account activity, user behavior and data to detect insider threats and cyber attacks, setting off alerts to mitigate malicious behavior.
Users can protect sensitive information files, emails, etc. What it does: Schneider offers cybersecurity protection for industries, buildings, grids, data centers and power distribution systems. It also provides deep and dark web monitoring.
What it does: Imperva helps businesses secure data and web applications from threats without disrupting the user experience. Working with customers like Zillow, GE and Siemens, Imperva crafts a security plan to fit each business's needs. The company regularly protects over three million databases and reportedly blocks thousands of app attacks every second.
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